AT a meeting of the Council of the Senate held on Monday, December
2, 1907, a Committee was appointed to consider what
steps should be taken to celebrate the Centenary of the birth of
Charles Darwin. On February 13, 1908, it was agreed by Grace of the
Senate to hold a Darwin Celebration in the course of the year 1909, and
in the following month the Committee was increased in size and
constituted as follows: The Vice-Chancellor (Rev. E. S. Roberts,
Master of Gonville and Caius College), the Master of Pembroke College
(Rev. Dr A. J. Mason), the Master of Christ's College (Dr Peile), the
Registrary of the University (Mr J. W. Clark), Professor Sir Robert
Ball, Professor Bateson, Dr Bonney, Mr Durnford, Dr Fletcher, Professor
Forsyth, Dr Gaskell, Professor McKenny Hughes, Mr A.
Hutchinson,
Professor Langley, Professor Larmor, Professor Liveing, Dr Marr, Mr
Punnett, Professor Sedgwick, Professor Seward, Mr Shipley.

By Grace of the Senate, March 4, 1909, it was agreed to contribute
the sum of £500 from the University Chest towards the expense
of the
Celebration; and at a subsequent date the Vice-Chancellor (Rev. A. J.
Mason, Master of Pembroke College) announced to the Senate that an
anonymous benefactor had generously offered to contribute an additional
£500.

In the preparation of the Sketch of Mr Darwin's life, which follows
the lines of the Epitome included in the Memorial volume of essays, Darwin
and Modern Science, recently published by the Syndics of the
University Press, we

have received considerable assistance from Mr Francis Darwin, to
whom we offer our cordial thanks. The portraits reproduced as the
Frontispiece and as Plates II, IV, VI, and X are reproduced from plates
originally published in More Letters of Charles Darwin. For
the use of these we are indebted to Mr Francis Darwin, and to the
courtesy of Mr John Murray. For the loan of Plate V our thanks are due
to Mr John Murray, by whom the illustration was first published in an
edition of the Journal of Researches in 1890. Plate III is from a
photograph taken by permission of the Master of Christ's College by
Messrs Scott and Wilkinson of Cambridge. Plate I is reproduced from a
photograph in the possession of Sir George Darwin, and Plates VII,
VIII, IX are from originals supplied by Mr Francis Darwin.

It is very important that invitation cards should be shown at the
entrance to the Museum.

Delegates and other Guests who are not Resident Members of the
Senate will be received by the Chancellor at the head of the Staircase.
After being received Guests are requested to pass on into the Picture
Galleries. The entrance to the Refreshment marquee and to the Grounds
of Peterhouse is from the First Egyptian room on the ground-floor.

In order to avoid confusion in calling carriages after the
Reception, Guests are requested to see that on alighting from their
carriages on arrival at the Fitzwilliam Museum they receive a numbered
ticket from the Policeman on duty.

10.30 a.m. Presentation of Addresses by Delegates
of Universities,
Colleges, Academies, and Learned Societies in the Senate House.

[Morning dress and Academic robes. (Members of the Senate will wear
Hoods and Bands and Doctors will wear Scarlet.)

Costume de ville et costume Académique.

Gehrock und Akademischer Ornat.]

(i) Address by the Chancellor.

(ii) Presentation of Delegates and Addresses.

(iii) A few short speeches will be delivered.

2.30 to 3.45. Visits to Colleges.

4 to 6 p.m. Garden Party given by the Master and
Fellows of Christ's
College in the College grounds.

[Morning dress and Academic robes. (Members of the Senate will wear
Hoods and Bands and Doctors will wear Scarlet.)

Costume de ville et
costume Académique.

Gehrock und Akademischer Ornat.]

The rooms occupied by Charles Darwin when an Undergraduate of
Christ's College (First Court, Staircase G) will be open to Visitors
during the afternoon of Wednesday, June 23, and during the morning and
afternoon of Thursday, June 24.

[Entrance from Pembroke Street. Carriages should be ordered to set
down Guests at the entrance to the Museums, Pembroke Street, and to
take up Guests after the Pembroke College At Home at the College
Gateway, Trumpington Street.

Guests are requested to assemble at the New Examination Hall at 6.45
p.m.]

10 to 12 p.m. The Master and Fellows of Pembroke
College At Home in
the College Hall and Gardens.

[Entrance to Pembroke College from Trumpington Street.

Guests attending the Banquet can enter the College by the Gate in
Pembroke Street]

12 noon. Rede Lecture delivered by Sir Archibald
Geikie, Sc.D.,
President of the Royal Society of London: Subject, Darwin as
Geologist.

[Morning dress and Academic robes. (Members of the Senate will wear
Hoods and Bands and Doctors will wear Scarlet.)

Costume de ville et
costume Académique.

Gehrock und Academischer Ornat.]

3 to 5.30 p.m. Garden Party given by Mr William
Erasmus Darwin, Sir
George and Lady Darwin, Mr Francis Darwin and Miss Frances Darwin,
Major and Mrs Leonard Darwin, Mr and Mrs Horace Darwin, Mrs Litchfield,
and Miss Darwin, in the Fellows' Garden, or, if wet, in the Hall and
Cloisters of Trinity College, which have been kindly lent by the Master
and Fellows.

[Morning dress.

Costume de ville.

Gehrock.]

(Entrance to the Garden from the Backs of the Colleges.)

————————————

Darwin Exhibition

During the Celebration there will be an Exhibition of portraits,
books, and other objects of interest in connexion with Darwin, in the
Old Library of Christ's College (Entrance from the First Court). The
Exhibition will be open from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.

(Catalogues may be bought in the Exhibition Room.)

Charles Darwin's Library

This Library, which Mr Francis Darwin has generously transferred to
the Botany School, Downing Street, may be seen on application at the
Botany School at any time between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., or between 2.30
p.m. and 5.30 p.m., during the Celebration. A few of the most
interesting volumes will be displayed in the Botanical Museum.

CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN,
born Feb. 12, at The Mount, Shrewsbury (Plate I), the house of his
father, Dr Robert Waring Darwin (b.
1766, d. 1848), who was the son of Erasmus Darwin (b. 1731, d. 1802),
Poet, Physician and Evolutionist. On the mother's side Charles Darwin
was grandson of Josiah Wedgwood (b. 1730, d. 1795), the founder of the
Etruria Pottery Works, Staffordshire.

Charles
Darwin retained a strong feeling of love and respect for his
father's memory. His recollection of everything connected with him was
peculiarly distinct, and he spoke of him frequently, generally
prefacing an anecdote with some such phrase as "My father, who was the
wisest man I ever knew."

"He was about 6 feet 2 inches
in height, with broad shoulders, and
very corpulent, so that he was the largest man whom I ever saw.... His
chief mental characteristics were his powers of observation and his
sympathy, neither of which have I ever seen exceeded or even equalled."
Darwin's Autobiography.

The house is charmingly placed
on a steep bank above the Severn. The
terraced bank is traversed by a long walk leading from end to end,
still called "The Doctor's Walk." At one point in this walk grows a
Spanish chestnut, the branches of which bend back parallel to
themselves in a curious manner, and this was Darwin's favourite tree as
a boy where he and his sister Catherine (Plate II) had each their
special seat.

1817

"At 8½ years old I went to Mr
Case's school." [A day-school at
Shrewsbury kept by the Rev. G. Case, Minister of the Unitarian Chapel.]
"By the time I went to this day-school my taste for natural history,
and
more especially for collecting, was well developed. I tried to make out
the names of plants, and collected all sorts of things, shells, seals,
franks, coins, and

minerals. The passion
for collecting which leads a man to be a
systematic naturalist, a virtuoso, or a miser, was very strong in me,
and was clearly innate, as none of my sisters or brother ever had this
taste."

1818

"I
was at school at Shrewsbury under a great scholar, Dr
Butler; I learnt absolutely nothing, except by amusing myself by
reading and
experimenting in Chemistry."

1825

"As I was doing no good at
school, my father wisely took me away at a rather earlier age than
usual, and sent me (Oct. 1825) to
Edinburgh University with my brother, where I stayed for two years."

1828

"As it was decided that I should
be a clergyman, it was
necessary that I should go to one of the English Universities and take
a
degree."

Christ's College was founded in
1505 by the Lady Margaret Beaufort,
mother of Henry VII. Darwin's rooms are on the south side of the first
court (Staircase G), above and to the right of the doorway shown in the
illustration (Plate III).

"During the three years which I
spent at Cambridge my time was
wasted, as far as the academical studies were concerned, as completely
as at Edinburgh and at school."

"In order to pass the B.A.
Examination, it was...necessary to get up
Paley's 'Evidences of Christianity,' and his 'Moral
Philosophy.'...The careful study of these works, without attempting to
learn any part by rote, was the only part of the academical course
which...was of the least use to me in the education of my mind."

"I have not as yet mentioned a
circumstance which influenced my
whole career more than any other. This was my friendship with Professor
Henslow (Plate IV)....He kept open house once every week when all
undergraduates and some older members of the University, who were
attached to science, used to meet in the evening....Before long I
became well acquainted with Henslow, and during the latter half of my
time at Cambridge took long walks with him on most days; so that I was
called by some of the dons 'the man who walks with Henslow.'"

"As time passed on at Cambridge
I became very intimate with
Professor Henslow, and his kindness was unbounded; he continually
asked me to his house, and allowed me to accompany him in his walks. He
talked on all subjects, including his deep sense of religion, and was
entirely open. I owe

more than I can express
to this excellent man. His kindness was
steady: when Captain FitzRoy offered to give up part of his own cabin
to any naturalist who would join the expedition in H.M.S. Beagle,
Professor
Henslow recommended me, as one who knew very little, but who, he
thought, would work. I was strongly attached to natural history, and
this attachment I owed, in large part, to him." C. Darwin in L. Jenyns'
Memoir of Henslow, 1862.

1831

Passed
the examination for the B.A. degree in January and kept
the two following terms.

"On returning home [August] from
my short geological tour in North
Wales [with Professor Sedgwick], I found a letter from Henslow,
informing me that Captain FitzRoy was willing to give up part of his
own cabin to any young man who would volunteer to go with him without
pay as naturalist to the voyage of the Beagle."

"The voyage of the Beagle has
been by far the most
important event in my life, and has determined my whole career."

"Everything about which I
thought or read was made to bear directly
on what I had seen or was likely to see; and this habit of mind was
continued during the five years of the voyage. I feel sure that it was
this training which has enabled me to do whatever I have done in
science."

1836

Oct. 4. "Reached Shrewsbury
after absence of 5 years and 2
days."

"You cannot imagine how
gloriously delightful my first visit was at
home; it was worth the banishment."

Dec. 13. Went to live at
Cambridge (Fitzwilliam Street).

1837

"On my return home [in the Beagle]
in the autumn of
1836 I immediately
began to prepare my journal for publication, and then1 saw
how many facts
indicated the common descent of species....In July (1837) I opened my
first note-book for facts in relation to the origin of species, about
which
I had long reflected, and never ceased working for the next twenty
years.
...Had been greatly struck from about month of previous March on
character
of South American fossils, and species on Galapagos Archipelago. These
facts origin (especially latter) of all my views."

1 On the question of when Darwin's mind
was first turned
towards Evolution, see Professor Judd in Darwin and Modern Science
(Cambridge,
1909), also the introduction to The Foundations of the Origin of
Species.

"On March 7, 1837, I
took lodgings in [36] Great Marlborough Street
in London, and remained there for nearly two years, until I was
married."

1838

"In
October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my
systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement 'Malthus on
Population,' and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for
existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of
the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these
circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and
unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the
formation of new species. Here then I had at last got a theory by which
to work; but I was so anxious to avoid prejudice, that I determined
not for some time to write even the briefest sketch of it."

"If the character of my father's
working life is to be understood,
the conditions of ill-health, under which he worked, must be constantly
borne in mind....No one indeed, except my mother, knows the full amount
of suffering he endured, or the full amount of his wonderful patience.
For all the latter years of his life she never left him for a night;
and her days were so planned that all his resting hours might be shared
with her. She shielded him from every avoidable annoyance, and omitted
nothing that might save him trouble, or prevent him becoming overtired,
or that might alleviate the many discomforts of his ill-health. I
hesitate to speak thus freely of a thing so sacred as the life-long
devotion which prompted all this constant and tender care. But it is, I
repeat, a principal feature of his life, that for nearly forty years he
never knew one day of the health of ordinary men, and that thus his
life was one long struggle against the weariness and strain of
sickness. And this cannot be told without speaking of the one condition
which enabled him to bear the strain and fight out the struggle to the
end." Francis Darwin in The Life and Letters.

Published Journal and
Researches, being Vol. III. of the Narrative
of the Surveying Voyage of H.M.S. Adventure and Beagle....

1842

"In June 1842 I first allowed
myself the satisfaction of
writing a very brief abstract of my [species] theory in pencil in 35
pages1; and this was

1 This MS, published under the title The
Foundations
of the Origin of Species, will be presented by the Syndics of the
University Press to the Delegates attending the Celebration.

enlarged during the
summer of 1844 into one of 230 pages, which I
had fairly copied out and still [1876] possess1."

Sept
14. Settled at the village of Down in Kent. (Plate VII.) "My
life goes on like clockwork, and I am fixed on the spot where I shall
end it."

Darwin's house lies 18 miles
from London, close to the village of
Down, which stands in a solitary upland country, 500 or 600 feet above
sea-level,—a country with little natural beauty, but possessing a
certain charm in the shaws, or straggling strips of wood, capping the
chalky banks and looking down upon the quiet ploughed lands of the
valleys. The village, of a few hundred inhabitants, consists of three
little streets of cottages meeting by the flint-built church. It is a
place where new-comers are seldom seen, and where the names occurring
in the old church registers are still borne by the villagers.

"Its chief merit is its extreme
rurality. I think I was never in a
more perfectly quiet country." (1843.)

The Sandwalk (Plate VIII) was
planted by my father with a variety of
trees, such as hazel, alder, lime, hornbeam, birch, privet, and
dogwood, and with a long line of hollies all down the exposed side.
Here he took a certain number of turns every day, and used to count
them by means of a heap of flints, one of which he kicked
aside each time he passed. The Sandwalk was our play-ground as
children, and here we continually saw my father as he walked round. He
liked to see what we were doing, and was ever ready to sympathise in
any fun that was going on. With regard to the Sandwalk, in connection
with our father, his children's earliest recollections coincide with
their latest,—so unchanging were his habits.

Adapted from Francis Darwin's Reminiscences
in Life
and
Letters.

Publication of The
Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs;
being Part I. of the Geology of the Voyage of the Beagle.

"I wish that some doubly rich
millionaire would take it into his
head to have borings made in some of the Pacific and Indian atolls, and
bring home cores for slicing from a depth of 500 or 600 feet." C.
Darwin, 1881.

"Though the 'doubly rich
millionaire' has not been forthcoming, the
energy, in England, of Professor Sollas, and in New South Wales of
Professor Anderson Stuart, served to set on foot a project, which,
aided at first by the British Association for the Advancement of
Science, and afterwards taken up jointly by the Royal Society, the New
South Wales Government, and the Admiralty, has led to the most definite
and conclusive

1 A Volume containing both these Essays
will be
published
by the Cambridge University Press in June of this year.

results....The verdict
arrived at, after this most exhaustive study
of a series of cores obtained from depths twice as great as that
thought necessary by Darwin was as follows:—

"The
whole of the cores are found to be built up of those organisms
which are seen forming coral-reefs near the surface of the ocean—many
of them evidently, in situ; and not the slightest
indication
could be detected, by chemical or microscopic means, which suggested
the proximity of non-calcareous rocks, even in the lowest portions
brought up."

J. W. Judd in
Darwin and Modern Science.

"I am very full of Darwin's new
theory of Coral Islands, and have
urged Whewell to make him read it at our next meeting. I must give up
my volcanic crater theory for ever, though it cost me a pang at first,
for it accounted for so much....Yet spite of all this, the whole theory
is knocked on the head." Lyell, 1837.

"I never forget that almost
everything which I have done in science
I owe to the study of his [Sir Charles Lyell's] great works."

1844

Publication of Geological
Observations on the Volcanic Islands
visited during the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle; being Part II. of the
Geology
of the Voyage of the Beagle.

1845

Publication of the Journal
of Researches as a separate
book.

1846

Publication of Geological
Observations on South America;
being Part III. of the Geology of the Voyage of the Beagle.

1851

Publication of a Monograph
of the Fossil Lepadidae and
of a Monograph of the sub-class Cirripedia (Barnacles).

1853

Received one of the two Royal
medals which are awarded by the Sovereign upon the recommendation of
the Council of the Royal Society.

"Amongst my letters received
this morning, I opened first one from
Colonel Sabine [Treasurer of the Royal Society]; the contents
certainly surprised me very much, but, though the letter was a very
kind one, somehow, I cared very little indeed for the
announcement
it contained. I then opened yours, and such is the effect of warmth,
friendship, and kindness from one that is loved, that the very same
fact, told as you told it, made me glow with pleasure till my very
heart throbbed. Believe me, I shall not soon forget the pleasure of
your letter. Such hearty, affectionate sympathy is worth more than all
the medals that ever were or will be coined." Letter to Hooker, 1853.
(Plate X.)

"The value of the
Cirripede monograph lies not merely in the fact
that it is a very admirable piece of work, and constituted a great
addition to positive knowledge, but still more in the circumstance that
it was a piece of critical self-discipline, the effect of which
manifested itself in everything your father wrote afterwards." T. H.
Huxley to F. Darwin, 1887.

"One
result was that he would never allow a depreciatory remark to
pass unchallenged on the poorest class of scientific workers, provided
that their work was honest, and good of its kind. I have always
regarded it as one of the finest traits in his character,—this generous
appreciation of the hod-men of science, and of their labours...and it
was monographing the Barnacles that brought it about." Sir J. D. Hooker
to F. Darwin, 1887.

1856

"Early in 1856 Lyell advised me
to write out my views pretty
fully, and I began at once to do so on a scale three or four times as
extensive as that which was afterwards followed in my Origin of
Species."

1858

Joint paper by Charles Darwin
and Alfred Russel Wallace "On the
Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the perpetuation of
Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection," communicated to
the Linnean Society by Sir Charles Lyell and Sir Joseph Hooker. (Read
July 1.)

I was at first very unwilling
to consent [to the communication of
his MS. to the Society] as I thought Mr Wallace might consider my doing
so unjustifiable, for I did not then know how generous and noble was
his disposition."

1859

Nov. 24. Publication of The
Origin of Species (1250
copies).

I never even built a castle in
the air of such success as it has
met with; I do not mean the sale, but the impression it has made on
you (whom I have always looked at as chief judge) and Hooker and
Huxley. The whole has infinitely exceeded my wildest hopes." From a
letter to Lyell, 1859.

I have received your kind note
and the copy; I am infinitely
pleased and proud at the appearance of my child...You are really too
generous to me about the, to me, scandalously heavy corrections. Are
you not acting unfairly towards yourself?" From a letter to Mr John
Murray, 1859.

The most potent instrument for
the extension of the realm of
natural knowledge which has come into men's hands, since the
publication of Newton's 'Principia,' is Darwin's 'Origin of Species.'"
Huxley, 1887.

The oldest of all
philosophies, that of Evolution, was bound hand
and foot and cast into utter darkness during the millennium of
theological scholasticism. But Darwin poured new life-blood into the
ancient frame; the bonds burst, and the revivified thought of ancient
Greece has proved

itself to be a more
adequate expression of the universal order of
things than any of the schemes which have been accepted by the
credulity and welcomed by the superstition of seventy later generations
of men." Huxley, 1887.

Dec.
26. Publication of Huxley's celebrated review of the Origin in
the Times.

Have you seen the
splendid essay and notice of my book
in the Times? I cannot avoid a strong suspicion that it is
by
Huxley....It will do grand service." C. Darwin to J. D. Hooker, 1859.

1860

Publication of the second
edition of the Origin (3000
copies).

Publication of a Naturalist's
Voyage.

June 28. Pitched battle over the
Origin at the Oxford
meeting of the British Association. Defeat of the Bishop of Oxford by
Huxley.

"On the whole...the supporters
of Mr Darwin's views in 1860 were
numerically extremely insignificant. There is not the slightest doubt
that, if a general council of the Church scientific had been held at
that time, we should have been condemned by an overwhelming majority."
Huxley, 1887.

1861

Publication of the third edition
of the Origin (2000
copies).

1862

Publication of the book On
the various contrivances by which
Orchids are fertilised by Insects.

Another favourite place was
'Orchis
Bank,' above the quiet Cudham
valley, where fly- and musk-orchids grew among the junipers, and
Cephalanthera and Neottia under the beech boughs."

1864

Received the Copley Medal, the
highest honour which the Royal Society can confer.

"Some old members of the Royal
are quite shocked at my having the
Copley."

That such a feeling existed is
clear from the action of the Council
in pointedly omitting from the grounds of their award the theory set
forth in the Origin. That this book could within five years
of
its publication be valued by the Royal Society merely as a "mass of
observations, etc.," is striking evidence of the slow progress of
Evolution. It may perhaps be said that 1870 is the date at which the
current of scientific opinion is seen to be definitely flowing in the
direction of Evolution: and 1880 the time by which it had reached its
full volume. Mr Huxley wrote in 1880:

Those who have
watched the progress of science within the last ten
years will bear me out to the full, when I assert that there is no
field of biological inquiry in which the influence of the Origin
of
Species is not traceable."

It
is interesting to find that of the sixty scientific societies of
which Darwin was an honorary member, only 15, or one quarter, elected
him before 1870. As to the magnitude of the change in public opinion Mr
Huxley wrote in 1887:

"The contrast between the
present condition of public opinion upon
the Darwinian question; between the estimation in which Darwin's views
are now held in the scientific world; between the acquiescence, or at
least quiescence, of the theologians of the self-respecting order at
the present day and the outburst of antagonism on all sides in 1858-9,
when the new theory respecting the origin of species first became known
to the older generation to which I belong, is so startling that, except
for documentary evidence, I should be sometimes inclined to think my
memories dreams."

1865

Read a paper before the Linnean
Society "On the Movements and
Habits of Climbing plants." (Published as a book in 1875.)

1866

Publication of the fourth
edition of the Origin (1250
copies).

1867

Received the Prussian Order
"Pour le Mérite."

1868

Publication of the Variation
of Animals and Plants under
Domestication.

"About my book I will give you
[Sir Joseph Hooker] a bit of advice.
Skip the whole of Vol. 1., except the last chapter (and that need only
be skimmed) and skip largely in the 2nd volume; and then you will say
it is a very good book."

1869

Publication of the fifth edition
of the Origin.

1871

Publication of The Descent
of Man.

"Although in the Origin of
Species the derivation of any
particular species is never discussed, yet I thought it best, in order
that no honourable man should accuse me of concealing my views, to add
that by the work in question 'light would be thrown on the origin of
man and his history.'"

"Darwin's work in regard to the
descent of man has not been
surpassed; the more we immerse ourselves in the study of the
structural relationships between apes and man, the more is our path
illumined by the clear light radiating from him, and through his calm
and deliberate investigation, based on a mass of material in the
accumulation of which he has

never had an equal.
Darwin's fame will be bound up for all time with
the unprejudiced investigation of the question of all questions, the
descent of the human race." G. Schwalbe in Darwin and Modern
Science.

1872

Publication
of the sixth edition of the Origin.

Publication of The
Expression of the Emotions in Man and
Animals.

1874

Publication of the second
edition of The Descent of Man.

Publication of the second
edition of The Structure and
Distribution of Coral Reefs

1875

Publication of Insectivorous
Plants.

"My book on 'Insectivorous
Plants' was published in July 1875—that is sixteen years after my first
observations. The delay in this
case, as with all my other books, has been a great advantage to me;
for a man after a long interval can criticise his own work, almost as
well as if it were that of another person."

Publication of the second
edition of Variation of Animals and
Plants.

Publication of The
Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants as
a separate book.

1876

Wrote Autobiographical Sketch (Life
and Letters, Vol. I. Chap. II.).

Publication of The Effects
of Cross and Self-fertilisation.

"It is remarkable that this
book, the result of eleven years of
experimental work, owed its origin to a chance observation. My father
had raised two beds of Linaria vulgaris—one set being the
offspring of cross- and the other of self-fertilisation. These plants
were grown for the sake of some observations on inheritance, and not
with any view to cross-breeding, and he was astonished to observe that
the offspring of self-fertilisation were clearly less vigorous than the
others." Francis Darwin, 1887.

1877

Publication of The
Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of
the same species.

"I do not suppose that I shall
publish any more books....I cannot
endure being idle, but heaven knows whether I am capable of any more
good work."

"It may be that eventually many
things will be viewed in a different
light, but Darwin's investigations will always form the foundation of
Floral Biology on which the future may continue to build." K. Goebel in
Darwin and Modern Science.

1879

Publication of his biographical
sketch of Erasmus Darwin as an
introduction to E. Krause's Essay, 1882.

"Whether
this masterly conception of the unity of what has hitherto
seemed a chaos of unrelated phenomena will be sustained, time alone
will show. But no one can doubt the importance of what Mr Darwin has
done, in showing that for the future the phenomena of plant movement
can and indeed must be studied from a single point of view." Sir
William Thiselton-Dyer, 1882.

"It has always pleased me to
exalt plants in the scale of organised
beings."

1881

Publication of The
Formation of Vegetable Mould, through the
Action of Worms.

1882

Charles Darwin died at Down,
April 19, and was buried in Westminster
Abbey, April 26, in the north aisle of the Nave a few feet from the
grave of Sir Isaac Newton.

"As for myself, I believe that I
have acted rightly in steadily
following and devoting my life to Science. I feel no remorse from
having committed any great sin, but have often and often regretted that
I have not done more direct good to my fellow creatures."

In 1885, Mr Huxley, referring to
"the manifestation of public
feeling not only in these realms, but throughout the civilised world,"
called forth by the death of Charles Darwin, said:—"The causes of this
deep and wide outburst of emotion are not far to seek. We had lost one
of these rare ministers and interpreters of Nature whose names mark
epochs in the advance of natural knowledge. For, whatever be the
ultimate verdict of posterity upon this or that opinion which Mr Darwin
has propounded; whatever adumbrations or anticipations of his
doctrines may be found in the writings of his predecessors; the broad
fact remains that, since the publication and by reason of the
publication, of the Origin of Species the fundamental
conceptions and the aims of the students of living Nature have been
completely changed."